This is Not the End for Us (This is Only the Beginning)
by McEvoyer
Summary: 2x23 Speculation Drabble. Slade takes Felicity to fulfill the final part of his masterplan, alerting Oliver to the fact that he had been looking at this whole thing the wrong way. What will happen when he reaches Slade? He doesn't know - but Felicity does.


**Hey there! I've been trying to write a finale speculation drabble for days now and finally I've finished one! I started it before the spoilerpalooza of the last two days so it's probably not even close to what is going to happen but I hope you guys like what you read anyway! Haha :) **

**Alas, I do not own Arrow.**

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The piercing sound of her cry was the only thing that he heard whenever he closed his eyes.

A screech so pained, so sharp, that it rattled his bones and shook his core down to its very atoms. A scream that he could have prevented if he had just paid more attention, if he had just allowed himself a moment to think, to figure it all out. Perhaps that was the problem; some part of him should have noticed the pattern – or lack thereof – but he was all about action over process. Preoccupation with Slade's next move overcame the need to be tuned in to his methods. _Stopping him _flowed in and out of everything he did, a mantra to repeat at his darkest hours and lowest points, the dwindling light of his existence providing the perfect backdrop to a tragic story.

Looking back it was easy to find the fault in that.

If only he had just…_looked_.

All it took was a phone call to click it all into place like pieces of a jigsaw.

"_I promised to take everything away from you until you have known complete and utter despair. Now is the time to face that moment, kid."_

_Oliver stilled, offering nothing except his harsh breaths, struggling to rein in his bounding agitation. _

_He could hear the smug, sadistic smirk in his voice. "What? Nothing to say? Well we'll see what you have to say when you realize how foolish you have been. There you are out there with your little gang, trying your best to save your city, when all the while you've made quite an enormous oversight."_

_His jaw clenched involuntarily, a chill tingling down his spine at the man's tone. "What are you talking about?" he ground out._

"_Do I have to spell it out for you, Oliver?" Slade chuckled, obviously enjoying himself. Oliver's blood boiled. "I thought you were smarter than that. I must say, I'm rather delighted to have finally crossed paths with Ms Smoak; she really is something else."_

"_Felicity?" he whispered aloud as all the breath left his body at once, his frame sagging forward until he was fighting to stay upright. Suddenly every ache he had endured over the course of the night intensified, every movement became nearly impossible, every thought he had shot through his mind, his whole sense of being in a highly questionable state. _

"_Did you really think I'd leave your precious IT girl unscathed?" Shuffling ensued, the unmistakable whimper of Felicity clanging through the white noise and hitting him square in the chest. His limbs tensed, the adrenaline kicking in. "Imagine my surprise when I learned that this not unattractive blonde was the one who held your heart. At first I thought it was merely one-sided – a schoolgirl crush; but then when I saw how you disposed of my good friend The Count, well needless to say, I started to pay a little more attention to her."_

_All around him the chaos accelerated to dizzying heights, his friends and comrades throwing everything they had into their mission, but he couldn't find it in himself to move. His brain and heart were at a complete disconnect, the pull of the heart far too strong. "Let her go Slade! She has nothing to do with this!"_

"_Oh but doesn't she? Remember the promise I made you Oliver. One more person has to die and then it will end."_

"_NO!" he thundered. "No, please just - please don't!" _

_A faraway call from Felicity followed his outburst but her voice was cut off by Slade's maniacal gruff chortle. "You have twenty minutes, kid. Be at the ship yard. I wouldn't want you to miss out on all the fun."_

_And then the line went dead. _

_And Oliver came to life._

The beeping of the heart monitor was the only thing keeping him sane as he waited and waited at her bedside, his hand never leaving hers. The stable sound rang through his mind, calming him almost, keeping him from falling over the edge. Despite the doctor's assurance that she should wake up soon, fear gripped his heart like a vice, squeezing it to the point where he wasn't sure if it could take the strain anymore and when that happened, he would drop his forehead to their intertwined fingers and take three deep breaths, praying to whoever the hell was out there to just give her the chance to live.

When the panic passed for a time, Oliver found himself marvelling at the little things, like how her hand fit snugly in his, or how long her eyelashes were, or the amount of freckles on her nose. It was there in the eerie stillness of that room, with wires dotting her arms and the bland clinical colours clashing with the vibrant soul that she was, when Oliver realized how little he knew about the irreplaceable Felicity Smoak. And if he was sure of anything at that point it was that he wanted to change that; he wanted to know everything about her, no detail too insignificant.

She just _needed _to open her eyes.

She was pale – so pale that if it were not for the steady rise and fall of her chest, he would have assumed she was already gone.

He hated the fact that he was the reason she was there in the first place. Felicity was Slade's endgame and the more he thought about it, the more it all became so clear. _She _was always his intended target; everything else was a distraction; an obstacle to fling in his way, causing him to stumble and make rash decisions that inevitably did more harm than good. Felicity was the only one he never approached; she was the only left untouched by his plans and back then, Oliver didn't question it. Why he didn't he wasn't sure – maybe it was because he couldn't afford to let his mind drift to the malevolence of the situation attaching itself to her. Maybe it was sheer negligence on his part.

No matter the reason, he shouldn't have left her out of his sight.

Not for a second.

"Come on, Felicity," he said quietly to her sleeping frame. "I need you to wake up. Remember when I said you're not going to lose me? Well, I…I can't lose you, okay? I can't."

He prayed again.

_The sight of Felicity in Slade's arms with the sword he had used to murder his mother resting against her neck conjured up nothing but rage within him. Felicity used all her might to hold back her tears, only breaking when her glance landed on him, a harsh sob escaping her lips. The same fear that she embodied the night The Count had taken her was present in her features, her hands shaking in fists by her side as she angled her head as far away from the blade as possible. Slade looked like a man possessed; his one good eye black and scorching. _

_The reality of the situation smacked Oliver all at once, his breaths coming in thick and fast spurts, eyes contracting to keep them from betraying his façade, shoulders squared in the man's direction. _

_He had no plan. _

_The one time he so desperately needed a plan…and he had nothing…_

"_Slade, listen to me, she has nothing to do with this. This is between you and me. Just us; no one else." His arm reached forward as if the movement alone would somehow prevent the man's intent. "Let her go."_

"_Oh I can't do that, Oliver," he retorted with chirpy venom. "You deserve to feel what I feel every single day. You deserve to feel hopeless. You deserve to feel empty. _You_ deserve to feel sheer misery! And the only way that can happen is if I take everything from you. Ms Smoak is the only part left to complete the plan!" His hold on her tightened and she winced with a sob as a trickle of blood flowed from the contact of the knife. _

"_Slade, stop this! Just stop and think about what you're doing! Please!" Oliver roared, feeling on the cusp of coming undone. His body was on fire, the heat ripping through him at fierce speed. "Don't you see what you're doing? You're killing innocent people! People who have nothing to do with this! Do you think Shado would want this?"_

_Slade barred his teeth. "Don't you dare say her name!" he hissed. "You killed her! You took her from me!"_

_Unable to rein it in anymore, wily tears fell from his eyes, the frustration and sheer terror taking their toll on him. He kept eyes on Felicity, her expression changing all the time, unsettling him. "I didn't, Slade," he said, his voice tired. "Ivo did. He shot her. I just reacted…I didn't know what to do." He took a step forward, noting the twitch in his adversary's arm. "I tried to save her – I begged for him to kill me. I—"_

"_No!" he boomed. "No, you chose Sara! When it came down to it, you tossed Shado aside like she was worthless because you felt compelled to save the girl you had already destroyed. Shado died thinking she wasn't enough, thinking she wasn't loved, and for that you don't deserve the happiness she did."_

_Another step forward. They were locked in a battle now, Slade focused solely on Oliver, the fury bounding off him in colossal waves. Oliver gritted his teeth. "That's not true and you know it – I cared about Shado! You knew I did! If I could bring her back I would but doing all this isn't going to bring her back, Slade!"_

"_But it will make me feel better," he smirked. "And that is good enough for me."_

_Reacting to the words, Oliver snatched at an arrow and readied himself for the shot but Felicity's voice stalled his action. The words were just above a whisper, a calm amidst the storm. "Oliver? Oliver…it's okay. It's okay. I promise."_

"_What?" he breathed, life zapping from him. No, no, no…._

"_Oliver just remember that I believe in you, okay? Just remember that. I always have."_

_Blue depths widened to the point of impossibility, his arms shuddering, the bow swaying to and fro. _

"_Isn't she a brave one?" Slade sneered, moving his mouth to the shell of her ear. "Just like Shado. And just Shado, she'll die because of you." _

_His blade began to move._

_Tears roamed freely, his mouth opening but only a solitary sound came out, "No…"_

"_Oliver?" Her eyes locked to his in a millisecond, the ghost of a smile gracing her features. "I love you." He straightened in awe at the admission, ignited once again. _

_And then Felicity stabbed the man in the leg with a syringe holding the cure in one swift move._

_And Oliver, utilising whatever strength was left in him, fired three arrows at his friend-turned-enemy, all three sinking into him before he could react – two into the heart and the third into his eye._

_Slade cried out, his sword slipping from her neck into her shoulder as he collapsed heavily onto the ground._

_The blonde screamed out, an ear-splitting sound that struck him so forcefully, already haunting him, and slumped to the floor like a rag doll. _

_Oliver rushed over to her side in an instant, gathering her into his arms, pressing his hands into the wound the weapon had made and let his tears drip and mix with her blood. He didn't look to see how bad the wound was; he couldn't make himself face the possibility of it being a lethal blow. Felicity was going to live._

_She had to live._

"_Stay with me, Felicity! Do you hear me? Hold on…just hold on…" He applied more pressure to the gash, his face scrunching every so often as a fresh bout of tears blurred his vision. "Please stay with me. Please…please…please…Felicity…Felicity please…." He sniffed as he clamped his teeth down to suppress the sobs clogging in his throat. "I…I love you too so…you can't...you have to live do you hear me? You are going to live! I'm not losing you!" _

_Digg reached them a few minutes later._

Just as he was about to succumb to the sleep that he had fought for hours, the slightest of tugs on his hand yanked him from the haze and he snapped his eyes open to look at the blonde girl that lay before him, heart hammering against his ribs. Her head moved sluggishly from side to side until her eyelids fluttered open. Oliver slid to the edge of his chair, leaning gently onto the bed, hands still tangled together, waiting expectantly.

Felicity blinked heavily and after a few moments her gaze settled on him.

"Hey," he whispered, offering her a small smile of relief; everything he felt, everything he needed to say breathed through the way he squeezed her fingers, making sure she did the same back.

When she answered him with the tiniest of grins, Oliver knew that, no matter what, they'd be okay…because they had each other.

And that was enough for him for a lifetime.

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**So what did you all think? I'm pretty sure the finale is going to kill me so it was nice knowing you all haha we are all doomed! ;) Anywho, please drop me a review and let me know what you thought - I'd love to hear any feedback you guys have! :)**


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